One fun title I have earned in my family is being the family’s travel agent. Five years ago I completely planned my family’s trip to New York, which was a trip to celebrate me graduating high school. I had so much fun organizing and planning our schedule and while my family loved the trip, I think they really loved having someone else plan it all, so that is when I became the family’s travel agent. Going to Atlantis has been on my grandma’s wish list for a long, long, long time and this year we finally got to make that wish come true for her!

The first task I do when planning a trip is to research everything there is about the place we are going to. This ended up being difficult for Atlantis, so I decided to make a blog post about our trip and what I planned to maybe help someone else planning/wanting to go to Atlantis.

After comparing prices on many different sites, I decided to book our flight and hotel through Expedia. We ended up saving a lot of money by booking through Expedia, which allowed us to put that saved money into our excursions. We decided to stay at the Royal Towers on the resort property. The one bit of information I was able to get from my research was that the Royal Towers are the place to stay for your first visit to Atlantis. I wanted my grandparents to experience the Atlantis they had seen on TV for so many years, so the Royal Towers were an easy pick for us. The other options were The Cove, The Reef, The Coral, The Beach, and Harborside Resort. From what I could tell, The Cove and The Reef are most expensive options, but have some perks such as having their own private beach and pools. The Royal and The Coral are connected to each other and offer a lot of the same things, but The Royal is in the center of the resort and is the building you think about when you imagine Atlantis.

After more price comparisons, I decided to book our excursions before we arrived to Atlantis. I planned for us to have one excursion a day and then I planned the rest of the trip around the excursions. Our first excursion was Playtime with Sea Lions and the entire family LOVED this experience! I was the only one who had interacted and swam with sea lions before, so it was fun to watch them all do it for the first time. The experience started by getting wet suits and then going on a “behind the scenes” tour of Dolphin Cay (this is where the dolphin and sea lion adventures are at). On the tour we got to see where they prepare the fish for the animals every day and where they do laundry (sounds weird, but a lot of laundry is done to allow for clean wetsuits everyday, so it was cool to see). Then we got to this back area where the sea lions are and our group was split into two to make each group have about 8 people in it. Each group got their own trainer and sea lion. We started by getting to know the sea lion by giving her belly and back rubs. We all stood in a line and she would swim back and forth for us to give her rubs. After we all got to know each other, the sea lion did a few tricks for us and then we started the “photo op.” The trainer had our sea lion come in between our group for a picture and I got to sneak in a few more rubs for being a good little sea lion!

Then we did some group family pictures with her and we all got to individually give her a treat!

After all the pictures were finished, we were given snorkel gear and we were allowed to start actually swimming with the sea lions.

Overall, I thought the sea lion experience was a lot of fun, but it is one that you have to make the most of. There were a few small children in our group that were scared of the sea lion and couldn’t swim with them after the pictures. My family was able to really get the most out of the experience, but I can understand that it is not for everyone.

For the rest of the day we decided to relax at the Atlantis Beach. It was really crowded in the afternoon, so if you’re trying to get a spot on the front row, you’ll have to get there in the morning or wait for someone else to move.

We eventually got tired of the crowd at the beach and decided to switch to the Paradise Lagoon Beach where we had the entire area to ourselves. Here’s a view of the Paradise Lagoon with the beautiful Royal Towers in the background.

Our second day started with our second excursion: Swim in Wonder. This was an interactive swim with dolphins! We split up in groups again and had three different stations to go to. We were given wetsuits and snorkel gear for this excursion and afterwards we got to keep the snorkel gear. The station we started at was getting to rub and love on a dolphin and then we got to be pushed by the dolphin’s nose on a kick board to the edge of the water. At the end of pushing us, the dolphin popped up out of the water for a picture!

Our second station was getting to hold on to the dolphin as she pulled us in. This was my favorite part of the experience because it was the closest we got to be with the dolphin!

Our third and final station was taking group pictures with the dolphin and then getting to swim and interact with her. At the end of the swim the dolphins all did some awesome tricks for us that were amazing to watch! The dolphins were my favorite excursion and I wish we could have had more time with them.

After the excursion, we went back to the Atlantis Beach to relax more. This day we discovered the famous Bahamas coconut drinks, which were so good! If you’re in Atlantis and looking for a coconut drink, make sure you find the guys that are doing 3 refills because that was the best deal we found in Atlantis.

We decided to try out our new snorkel gear while at the beach, but there really was not much to see except pretty water and sand. However, it was still fun to do!

After we got tired of the beach, we went to try out the Rapids River, which is pretty much a fancy lazy river with rapids randomly throughout it. The only downside about this ride to me is that you have to get off at the end and walk over to the starting point to do it again.

For the third day, our excursion was the Twilight Snorkel in the Ruins, so we had until 7:45 PM to do whatever we wanted. We started the day with exploring the Atlantis water park, Aquaventure. We went down the famous Leap of Faith slide that goes through a tank of sharks, then we went back to the Rapids River after finding out it connects to more slides in the Power Tower.

The PowerTower has a total of four slides, two of which are connected to the Rapids River. The ones connected to the Rapids had some time in darkness, but they were both a lot of fun. Any of the slides can be accessed by the normal PowerTower entrance, but I really enjoyed the ones you could get to by the Rapids since you could sit in line instead of stand.

The Twilight Snorkel in the Ruins is unlike anything I have ever done before and will probably be something I never get to experience again. I think it’s a must when in Atlantis! We were given life jackets and snorkel gear, then we were given an orientation about how to swim in the water. We were going to be swimming among hundreds of different kinds of fish, sting rays, a HUGE manta ray, and sharks, so there was a certain way they wanted us to swim while snorkeling. We had to keep our legs together and at the top of the water and we could only swim with our arms. They did not want us making big splashes or upsetting the fish. Since they let you bring a GoPro and other waterproof items with you on the swim, I made do with swimming with one arm so I could capture our entire snorkel on video. This excursion was my entire family’s favorite and is something we would probably all recommend to anyone going to Atlantis.

We wanted to wait and get dinner after the excursion and once the excursion ended after 9 PM we were sooo hungry. We decided to get pizza from the Marina Pizzeria and once we got to the Marina we were so upset we had not spent more time here before now! I would recommend checking out and seeing the Marina early during your trip because it is such a cool area with shopping and restaurants.

Our final full day in Atlantis included our last excursion, which was the Stingray Experience. Honestly, this was my family’s least favorite excursion, but it was still an interesting, once in a lifetime experience (once in a lifetime because we’ll probably never hang out with stingrays again hahaha). This excursion started with an orientation to the stingrays and how to move around them. I ended up calling the movement the stingray shuffle and made up a little song about it while in the water to help calm myself 🙂 We were given a life jacket, a glove, and a bucket of shrimp and were allowed to feed the stingrays at the beginning of the experience. To me, the problem about this excursion was that there were just too many stingrays to initially enjoy the experience. There were over 150 cow-nose stingrays that we were told “did not understand personal space.” This meant all 150 stingrays were all over us from the moment we got into the water. While I did get used to them being everywhere, I was still nervous about moving and causing one of them to sting me.

After we finished feeding them, we were given snorkel gear and allowed to swim around! This was much, much, much better for me because it gave me some room from the string rays and allowed me to enjoy the experience more.

After we finished with the stingrays, we went to do the other PowerTower slides and then we went back to the Atlantis Beach. We spent the night shopping and eating at the Marina, which was one of our favorite non-water spots!

Eating wise, our favorite restaurant was The Point at Harborside. We went during sunset and had the most beautiful view. The only restaurant we went to actually in Nassau was Twin Brothers and it was fun to go to a place where the locals do. For lunch we ate at random quick bites throughout Atlantis.

Shopping wise, we went to Downtown Nassau one morning and got to shop there for a bit and see the straw market. None of us ended up buying anything here, but it was interesting to see and experience! Most of our purchases came from Atlantis gift shops. We also got a few bracelets and things from the local vendors at the Atlantis Beach.

Well, that is pretty much our trip to Atlantis! We really had the time of our lives and loved every minute. If you have any questions at all, I will do my best to answer them!!